Patch 5.3 Dev Interview
Today we are looking at an interview with Cory Stockton by WoWJuju.

Future

The big unannounced feature will have a cool impact on the game and is something they have been talking about for a long time.

Patch 5.4 should be on the PTR fairly soon, so we will know what it is soon!

The team is looking at ways to make getting in to PvP easier, similar to how LFR made getting in to PvE easier. One of the changes made towards this goal was the PvP gear and stat changes in Patch 5.3.

Pet Battles

PvP servers don't get any system changes just because they are a PVP server, so getting attacked while in a wild pet battle is just part of the PvP server experience.

There are a few auction house fixes on the list for filtering and displaying battle pets, some of which may end up in Patch 5.4.

The pet battle system is built around collection and advancement, with the battle being a fun game with strategy.

Models are reused between pets to increase the number of pets you can collect, with some using different skins on the same model.

The ICC buff was nice in that it helped you to defeat the bosses, but players felt weak in the outside world after raiding with that large buff. Debuffing the bosses rather than buffing the players was the solution to this problem.

Misc

The Troves of the Thunder King scenario worked out well and the devs will continue to experiment with more things like it in the future.

The new unlucky streak protection can be used in other areas where streaks of bad luck will make gameplay unpleasant.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Heroic Scenario Rewards
Extreme bad luck with RNG can make things feel less rewarding, especially if players are used to 5man heroics always dropping some loot, so even if they don’t get loot, at least they see it dropping, which gives them a feeling of accomplishment (seeing what dropped instead of "if it dropped"), I understand that only seeing some gold at the end of a run can feel a bit… “meh!”

Having said that, there are measures we can take to at least provide a bit of protection against extreme streaks of bad luck if we think that they are necessary. We’ll keep an eye on this, it’s useful for us to know that some players are finding heroic scenarios interesting and challenging but not rewarding, and we’ll let devs know about it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Resillience and Low Level Characters
Just to touch on this topic quickly; Any characters below level 90 currently gets 40% base resilience, this is intentional. This is partially because there is lower level gear that we were not ready or unable to remove the resilience from. We’ll eventually strip the resilience off all the old gear if we don’t redesign the system for later patches and at that point we may make changes to the base resilience numbers for lower levels. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Low Level Dungeons
It would be great to have much harder content for those who enjoy that kind of challenge while levelling, but I believe that the issue is if we make low level dungeons much harder, most players would avoid them altogether because they wouldn’t be competitive enough in terms of xp/time when compared to questing.

That’s a problem because it would probably have the unfortunate consequence of increasing the queue times for LFD. So in the end we would be faced with almost no one running dungeons while levelling.

Anyone wanting to run those harder dungeons would probably go through very few of them due to having very long waiting times, and these players would only represent a tiny portion of the total number of players that would be still levelling up.

Maybe what would be possible would be to tune the difficulty of heroic versions a lot higher and to provide a better xp/time ratio by compensating with an increased amount of xp per mob to actually make it competitive with questing. This would provide a nice alternative without removing any existing content for those who enjoy the experience of normal dungeons.

We need to keep in mind that dungeon attractiveness depends largely on the relationship between difficulty and rewards; this includes: xp/time ratio, gear and entertainment/fun level.

We would need to tune them to be challenging without feeling discouraging, that means we need to hit that sweet spot where a player that enjoys challenging content would always queue for the heroic version instead of the normal without feeling that he would be losing anything by making that choice, else, heroics would be plagued by high queue times and players would gradually stop using them.

The problem is we have finite resources, of course ideally we would love to put out content for every kind of player out there because we can actually do that with the scaling functionalities we have in place, but we like to do things the right way, we’re not just going to automatically increase the hp/level/xp of every mob and loot without properly checking everything about each dungeon, and this takes time, time that would be better spent on creating new raids and dungeons for level 90, because as many of you know, that’s one of the major things players have been asking us, that we stop putting so much focus on LFR and instead create challenging content with new 5mans for players that just dinged level 90 and dislike the low difficulty level and lack of social interaction of LFR. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

PvEhow come bosses always die at 1-2% these days? I get it for ones that go friendly at low health, but others?
Usually so we can do some kind of RP at the end. We'd like to have most bosses die at 0 though, even if some storytelling follows. (Source)

Heroic Scenarioswhy does rand n-scen take away the epic box reward for rand h-scen? sucks that cant do scens waiting for friends to log on.
We wanted heroic scenarios to replace random ones for capable players, not be yet another task to do every day. (Source)

The one blemish on the face of Heroic Scenarios? No cloth (or anything, but only care about cloth) from trash mobs anymore.
We debated that a lot, but we have some timed objectives and that doesn't play well with stopping to loot everything. (Source)

How is people spamming trade with "LF2M HSC" any different than allowing us to queue? It's queueing in a more annoying way.
You have a chance to vet the group you're in and maybe more motivation to make it work once you have a group. (Source)
Maybe, just maybe, you'll add the good folks to your friends list and run future scenarios with them. #sneakysocialization. (Source)

Still not sure how I feel about requiring a pre-made group for random heroic scenarios. Feels like a step backwards.
We found in Cat that hard can be fun and matchmaking can be convenient, but the two don't work well together. (Source)

Still have LFR req 480 and queue'd. Heroic Scenario same 480 req. Why no queue? Same difficulty level.
There are a lot of other people to help cover for a weaker player in LFR. We also wanted to do bonus objectives in scenarios. (Source)

DungeonsWhy does it take so much more time to design a dungeon than a scenario?
Art is the big one, but the boss mechanics are also more complex and we have to make sure the loot and lock outs work correctly. (Source)

It'd be nice if you simply shifted LFR into 5-mans. We still see content. We still keep 5-mans. LFR clusterfudge goes away.
I just think they are different experiences. Having an army of characters is epic. (Source)
We even catch flak sometimes when major enemies can be defeated by just 5 folks. We brought back Anub'arak for that reason. (Source)

"Dungeons come with the expectation of new architecture, and some new art, and mechanics like that." I disagree!
To be fair, Jade Temple was developed as a dungeon first. (Source)
The discussion IIRC was whether we could just take chunks of terrain (as we do with scenarios) and call that a dungeon. (Source)
My suspicion is players would see through that so we'd only want to do it sparingly. (Source)

Raid FinderHow do you reconcile that with many players running LFR every week & having fun with it? Curious where LFR fits
LFR is more about seeing content and earning gear. There is less of a sense of boss progression since your success is never in doubt. (Source)

LFR is intended to display content. LFD is/was intended to be a catalyst for organized raiding. Why not merge them?
LFD wasn't intended to get people into raiding. That's one of those issues I mentioned about not everyone wants to raid. (Source)
LFD is a good way to gear up for raiding for sure, but at the time, heroic 5s were the endgame for many people. (Source)

ever feel LFR overexposes the raid to some players? ToT has been out for like 2 months but feels like i been there for a year
It's a risk. I personally feel like my kill tolerance is about 16 kills. Beyond that, I lose interest dramatically. (Source)
So if you're doing LFR every week, especially combined with N or alts, you can burn yourself out quickly. (Source)
LFR is a little worse for that because you see all the bosses quickly instead of working towards the last few. (Source)

RE: players ignoring mechanics in LFR in favor of more DPS - have you read this post? http://t.co/2AwEE6hYVi
Good post. Also remember that some players really just don't understand the mechanics. (Source)
True raiders sometimes forget just how much more they know about the game than many LFR players. (Source)Some players get world firsts drunk wtf is your point? You don't understand something read up on it don't be stupid!
Raid Finder isn't about watching lots of strategy videos first. That's not the intent. (Source)True you dont have to do tons of research b4 LFR but it's irritating to get tanks who have zero idea how a fight works.
That's fair. I think a common expectation is that tanks have some idea what is going on, especially several weeks into a patch. (Source)

Raidscan u clarify hotfix on lfr grouping when i entered lfr my friend left and the system kicked me
If you queue with a tank for short queues and then he or she bails, it kicks you as well, esp. if you have a history of it. (Source)
I don't know of course if that is what happened to you, but that is one possibility. (Source)

Is there any specific reason the Devs decided to put near impossible-to-kill trash (aka Ritualists ) at Animus?
I think the problem with that particular pull is that it's not clear how you're intended to do it. (Source)

Raiding in its current form has lost its niche among the players but i might be wrong. I mean from player participation %
Our numbers don't look very different. I am sure LFR stole some folks from 10s, but overall my suspicion is most didn't raid before. (Source)
There is some confusion about what you are supposed to do when a new tier comes out: finish the current one or jump to the new one? (Source)
We were trying to preserve the older tier a little, but that feels weird when you can jump into LFR and see everything. (Source)

Do you want heroic guilds to still have to work a decent amount day 1, or are you alright if they blow through it.
Generally blowing through it is fine since they out gear the content. (Source)
We would open heroic on day one except that it's nice to have a week to catch stuff. (Source)

as opposed to plowing thru lfr and getting stuck on normal modes?
The traditional raid experience was to spend several nights on a new boss. LFR you can finish in a couple hours. (Source)
So I feel like we're talking about different time scales of "plow through." Finishing N in a day or two for a non-H guild is odd. (Source)

But having harder 10s some tiers and harder 25s other tiers is schizo. Pick a thing, STATE IT, and stick with it.
never the intent; just the way tuning works out sometimes. As I've said before, PTR testing tends to skew to skilled players. (Source)

and why not make heroic epically heroic, so the HC boss goes down 2 month after patch not 1 day, eg: new spells, no DG journal
Heroic guilds these days might make 400 attempts on a boss. It is probably not possible to make that 4000. (Source)
The only solution is limited attempts, which we do a little, but overall can feel like artificial gating. (Source)
We could make e.g. Lei Shen require H T-forged gear for even Method to beat, but then nobody else will ever have a chance. (Source)

World not complaining, but what do you think about CRZ? does it work as intented or did it become a flop?
Was questing through Vash'jir today and saw a lot of other players. In that respect, it's working great. (Source)but did you engage with them, or is it just an illusion so we don't feel 'alone'? (and with no social benefit)
I'm not sure that I engaged with players in the Barrens in Vanilla. We helped each other out from time to time. (Source)
I'm sure some people met their lifetime guilds while randomly questing, but I'm not sure how often that happened even back then. (Source)

and there is no way to level an alt on pvp servers anymore because of the implementation of crz
That implies pre CRZ you weren't doing much PvP while leveling up, which isn't really the experience those servers were going for. (Source)

I'd like to see the numbers supporting a lot of people actually doing Heroic scenarios...I don't think I've ever read a blue post responding to a positive thing ever said about heroic scenarios (not that a lot of people don't do them, I just can't say either way).

It scares me when a Dev uses the term "Cool". I think what they mean by that is "Here's another feature you'll probably dislike" but too bad. Not to sound pessimistic but I see a "Outlook not so good" forming in the Magic 8 Ball.

Heroic Scenarios LFMs and LFGs are active in populated servers, though normally they'd take one or two people with ToT-like ilvls (my brother pst someone with 485 ilvl and he wasn't allowed) which is beyond dumb.

I haven't got around to leveling my pets ever since I resubbed either, hopefully I can raise a team to level 25 soon

"PvP servers don't get any system changes just because they are a PVP server, so getting attacked while in a wild pet battle is just part of the PvP server experience."

That's a horrible thing to say. Really mind numbing. It just opens up more chances to grief someone, not to mention if you're in a pet battle you can't defend yourself. I call bullshit on that - you should be untargetable and immune to damage if you're in a Pet Battle, so long as you've done at least a round of combat (to stop people just running up to a wild pet to escape combat).

I know some PvP 'heroes' will disagree and trott out the usual rubbish responce. But if you attack someone who's fighting and trying to capture a rare pet, you're pretty much griefing them. PvP be damned in this case. Its akin to being attacked while in a dungeon by enemy players, which is something that is impossible for good reason.

We found in Cat that hard can be fun and matchmaking can be convenient, but the two don't work well together.

This would be more meaningful if Heroic Scenarios were actually hard. The only challenging part about them is the usual "don't stand in fire" mechanic. Everything else is as easy as normal scenarios, it just takes longer.

This would be more meaningful if Heroic Scenarios were actually hard. The only challenging part about them is the usual "don't stand in fire" mechanic. Everything else is as easy as normal scenarios, it just takes longer.

They could make low level dungeons harder and just apply an experience buff of say 50% for 2 hours to people who completed them. That way the dungeons would yes, take longer, but the added xp bonus reward would make it worthwhile. Either that or just further buff the xp gained from dungeon trash or bosses.

It seriously shouldn't take long to find 1-2 other people for a H scen. If I don't have any friends or guildies on I ask once in trade and already have a group formed and my server isn't even a populated one. Plus the scenarios aren't hard at all, even if you don't go for the bonus. In 510 ilevel I can chain pull them with two others in the 480-500 ilevel range and do just fine.

This would be more meaningful if Heroic Scenarios were actually hard. The only challenging part about them is the usual "don't stand in fire" mechanic. Everything else is as easy as normal scenarios, it just takes longer.

Or you know, the fact that you're on a PVP realm. Don't be such a wuss, I can smell you emasculation from here.

---------- Post added 2013-06-01 at 02:30 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Tedus

They could make low level dungeons harder and just apply an experience buff of say 50% for 2 hours to people who completed them. That way the dungeons would yes, take longer, but the added xp bonus reward would make it worthwhile. Either that or just further buff the xp gained from dungeon trash or bosses.

"The team is looking at ways to make getting in to PvP easier, similar to how LFR made getting in to PvE easier. One of the changes made towards this goal was the PvP gear and stat changes in Patch 5.3."

In other ways they are looking for a way to ruin pvp for everyone similar to how they came up with raid finder to destroy pve.

"We were trying to preserve the older tier a little, but that feels weird when you can jump into LFR and see everything."

There is a simple solution for that - just delay LFR longer. It shouldn't be released until the next patch (ie, 5.0 raid LFR released with 5.1, 5.2 LFR with 5.3, etc). Yes, it is great that everyone can see everything. They don't all need to see it at the same time. In fact, as a player who has ranged from hardcore to very casual, I don't WANT to be able to see end game as a casual almost as soon as all but the most hardcore players. In fact, this should be the same way with hard modes and regular modes. Hardmodes should be released first, and regular modes a few weeks to a month later. This would have the added bonus of making the world-leading guilds attack the hard modes directly without any feeder gear from regular modes.

"It would be great to have much harder content for those who enjoy that kind of challenge while levelling"

One of my dreams for WoW would be hard mode servers. Yep. EVERYTHING would be hard mode. LFR and regular raids would not exist, and you could only transfer in from another hard mode server. Leveling would not have XP requirements, but rather dungeon or quest chain requirements, all of which would be hard mode hard. Elite mobs would be everywhere. Resources would be perpetually short. Hitting level 61, 71, etc would require clearing the relevant raids, and players above level 61, 71, etc would not be allowed into lower level raids (I'd allow 61's in the level 60 raids, etc, because the whole guild can't level at once. However, these new 61's would have to avoid triggering level 62 or they couldn't raid with their guildmates until the former leveled on their own). Death would be penalized more heavily, especially outside of raids. It would be a world where the men were men and the weak wailed. It would be a blast.

It seriously shouldn't take long to find 1-2 other people for a H scen. If I don't have any friends or guildies on I ask once in trade and already have a group formed and my server isn't even a populated one. Plus the scenarios aren't hard at all, even if you don't go for the bonus. In 510 ilevel I can chain pull them with two others in the 480-500 ilevel range and do just fine.

Pretty hard to do heroic scenarios when there is 5-10 people at level 90 at peak hours on some servers.

So you can get attacked while in a pet battle? When did this get changed? I know when it started if you went to the spot they are at they would disappear and Im sure they had to change things for spectating but why would it have to be that you can be physically attacked and not other players can see any details of your pets?